Ann, I was a little perplexed at your outright dismissal of anyone who might be blogging with the sneaky intention of marketing his legal practice, whether or not such an intent does or not coexist with "good" reasons for blogging. Granted, a lot of legal blogs stink to high heaven with the marketing taint, a taint which is only too obvious. But a lot of the marketing professionals who advise lawyers, some of them lawyers themselves, advise them to blog in a way that contributes to the conversation on other blogs and provides genuine information of value to prospective clients, i.e. in a way that is not so nakedly self-promotional. I myself have steered away from such marketing professionals, because they seem unduly leery of professional blogging that doesn't stay strictly on message, and on the topic of the practice area one is hoping to market. God forbid you clutter your blog with your own personal idiosyncrasies or un-PC thoughts. I think the result of such recommendations and focus on the marketing aspects can be a pretty bland blog, "slick" though it may be. Perhaps that's all you were saying.

Dear althouse you provide a true service with a teacher's heart letting the commenters enjoy each other. After reading comments from really deranged people on almost all other Blogs you shine as a light in a dark place. thanks.

I think you're on to something, but there's more to it than that. Much more. Ann repeatedly shows her preference for conservatives, and her contempt for liberals. That's why her fanbase is made up almost entirely of conservatives.

Two of Ann's favorite people are not just conservative, but ultra-right-wing: Rush Limbaugh and Mark Steyn. Her preferred candidates for president were Giuliani and Romney.

If Ann wasn't conservative, the conservatives who dwell in her comments would not defend her so aggressively.

Verso, I realize you get some enjoyment out of bashing Ann and those you consider conservative but you're comments indicate you are either an idiot (which I don't think is true) or you live a very shallow, pathethic existence.

I see they have Glenn Reynolds classified (correctly, in my view) as "far right."

Utter intellectual dishonesty there--and to think it was written as a point of pride. The semi-informed always flaunt their cracks in analysis, gloriously and obliviously, much like the apocryphal construction workers, except that the latter are dignified by their work.

I suspect Instapudit's regular skewering of govt, the MSM and other establishment creatures makes him "by default a far right conservative

No, more likely it's because he's a hawk on foreign policy and a strong Second Amendment advocate. And he hasn't pulled his hair out over the Administration's detention/interrogation policies. Plus, he's from the South (he's sometimes called "Instacracker" by his leftist critics).

Either of those - especially the latter two during a Republican Administration - will earn you the "right wing" or "far right" label.

These used to be called, broadly speaking, Scoop Jackson Democrats. JFK, Truman types.

A dying breed (although Obama may be more tough minded than we think).

SteveR said, Verso, I realize you get some enjoyment out of bashing Ann and those you consider conservative but you're comments indicate you are either an idiot (which I don't think is true) or you live a very shallow, pathethic existence.

Bashing Ann?!? I am not bashing Ann. I like Ann, and enjoy her blog immensely, as I have said over and over again. I'm simply describing Ann the way virtually everyone describes her.

Kind of a pity they didn't put the caveat "sometimes I blog about law" in to say the Blog is rich in non-legal subjects or say the "photography of dead birds" is far more extensive and artistic than that. (I guess the ABA Journal saw fit not to comment on an artist who sees enveloping Brooklyn fog as a remarkable photo time, the palatte of 30 different snow textures and colors against a Honda in a snowed in parking lot, or an impressionist water-reflected "willows" that was Maxfield Parrish all the way..)

The collective force of Ann's right-wingin' commenters helps to give this blog its "right-leaning" credentials. That Ann herself isn't that right-wing is far outweighed by the gang of crazies here who still think Obama is going to put Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers and Noam Chomsky in his cabinet.

I know how to fix the right-leaning profile thing that keeps happening. Angle your chair so you present your left side to the interviewer. That way, your silhouette profile thingie the interviewer makes will come out with your nose pointing to the left and your left side being profiled in the shadow. See? Fixed.

Pointedly, they left out the part of the narrative in which Ann voted for Sen. Obama. The "pointedly" part is clear as day, unless one prefers to rely on limited numbers of dubious daubs on the canvas. The only other plausible explanation: Actually reading the blogs of the nominees in any fashion useful to the task at hand was considered to be a strictly optional exercise.

That Ann herself isn't that right-wing is far outweighed by the sensible folks here who still think Obama is going to put Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers and Noam Chomsky in his cabinet.

The sensible (truly sensible) folks--left, right and center--here thought nothing of the kind, and what a shocking concept that must be to you. Daniel, it is so easy to understand why you prefer not just a different narrative, but one utterly lacking in nuance and challenge.

Virtually everyone in your circles, perhaps, but a false statement repeated often enough doesn't become any more true, hmm?

Re Clinton, I can't take credit - I was cued to investigate by another commenter here. But I do feel it fair to claim at least some credit: I started investigating and writing about this issue and emailed Volokh and Instapundit a week before they woke up and started paying attention. Perhaps if Reynolds paid more attention to his inbox his blog would be more timely: There was a time that he was the must-read blogger, but more and more I see things showing up at late-a-pundit days after they've been in common circulation.

Clearly, the ABA isn't a trustworthy source. While the posts here are definitely "quirky" (in a not-as-bright-as-Goldie-Hawn way), I have yet to see anything that's "substantive". She's also more of a conservative Dem than anyone who's "right-leaning".

She also failed to ask McCain a real question when she was one of the few given the chance. Althouse could have prevented McCain from being the nominee if she'd taken her civic duties seriously. Instead, she either didn't ask a question or asked about shoes or something.

She's not all that's wrong with America, but she clearly has some things that are wrong: a failure to take citizenship seriously and - in the case of her voting for BHO - a clear inability to understand what a charlatan is.

Perhaps if Reynolds paid more attention to his inbox his blog would be more timely: There was a time that he was the must-read blogger, but more and more I see things showing up at late-a-pundit days after they've been in common circulation.

i think he's slowly becoming a victim of his own success. he has stated many times that his email volume is huge and he does try to read it all (the mind boggles). although he is not as timely as he used to be (he seems to be running a couple of days late at the moment), his blog is still the one i read first.

It's turning out that Obama is exactly as I suspected when I decided to vote for him: He's a moderate pragmatist whose administration will likely be much like Clinton's minus the personal scandals. I'm glad I didn't buy into all the smears on Obama from some of you right wingers here. He's certainly not my ideal for a prez, but he's pretty far from the way the right wingers around here described him.

I see they have Glenn Reynolds classified (correctly, in my view) as "far right."

That's insane.

The left creates such a powerful echo chamber for itself on the web, its members don't understand that left-wing views don't appeal to more than about 15 percent of the electorate. And for good reason. Such views are a logical house of cards.

To me, "far right" connotes extreme nationalism with an extreme skepticism of the federal government and, very likely, a fundamentist religious view that sees the US as a Christian nation.

Reynolds (and Althouse) are miles away from such opinions. I see both of them as mainstream intellectuals who use the power of reason to explore issues and draw conclusions.

"Reason" is an ideal, and all of us who cherish reason also have our own particular vision of it. Hence, we love debate, and are open to the ability of debate to alter our own opinions.

What earns Glenn and Ann the sobriquet "wingnuts" from some of you is that they often disagree with you. Simple as that. Your imaginations are so limited, you can't imagine informed opposition to one of your half-baked conclusions. You've used no process of reason whatsoever to reach your conclusions. You feel, not think. You don't know why you feel the way the you feel, so it seems kinda tricky when someone uses logic in a way that might corrode your faith in your own opinions. You guys are all, "Take bad thing away! Make head hurt!"

It's a form of bear-baiting, I guess. But unlike the bears, you guys volunteer for it. But like the bears, you never really understand what happened to you when you're cherished views get undressed in forums like this.

Oh yes, Oaf, I'm sure you'll be the first volunteer on your block for the Obama Mandatory Volunteer Corps.

I don't know anything about that shit. If he went on about such a thing in the campaign, it was the sort of thing I instantly ignored.

Look, Obama is the most likable politician to run for prez since Ronald Reagan. You guys kept trying to smear him as an extremist when he's clearly not one.

Sarah Palin tried to say he was a pal of terrorists. What a disgusting attack from that wacko woman! Obama said all campaign long that he wanted to be more vigrous in going after terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan than Bush, and we see with the Mumbai attack that he was right on the money.

Color me unsurprised that Glenn Reynolds is considered far-right. John Stodder nailed it: a conservative stance on just a few issues is enough to get you labeled a "wingnut."

However, I would add that it's the mere popularity of Glenns's blog that earns him so much vitriol... same with Althouse. There are a hell of a lot of people out there who are envious of the attention. In fact, I firmly believe that's what motivates most of the regular trolls that hang out here.

LoafingOaf said..."Look, Obama is the most likable politician to run for prez since Ronald Reagan."

Haha. Not so much.

"Sarah Palin tried to say he was a pal of terrorists."

She said he "palled around" with terrorists like Bill Ayers, which was accurate based on information available at the time, and has become even clearer since the election. Whether he is a pal to terrorists more broadly I don't know, but I do know that precipitating a constitutional crisis by nominating someone ineligible as his Secretary of State is no way to conduct a war on terror.

Love you, Ann, and glad you got the recognition, but you better face reality about the perceived rightward tilt to your opinions.

There is definitely a rightward tilt -- but many of my more moderate conservative (andlargely GOP) friends were so disgusted by Bush, and bewildered by the post-2004 McCain (which was a decidedly harder right version of McCain than the 1998 - 2004 version), that they actually found themselves liking Obama and voting for him. And let's be honest -- Obama is a rare (in politics anyway) combination of extremely high level intelligence, open mindedness, eloquence, compassion and ruthless pragmatism, a combination that represents all most of us want in a President anyway, whatever our ideological leanings). What I disconnected with in looking at your Blog was your sometimes eager willingness to defend McCain, to let the McCain who took a hard right turn and sucked up big time to the theocratic wing of the "republican base" in order to win the GOP nomination slide, right up to and even past the point of the Palin selection and his very troubling behavior after the financial crisis broke, when you finally seemed to have had enough and made your call for Obama. I think that willingness to let McCain slide prior to Mid-October is a reflection of your rightward lean. I suppose you might view it as orchestrated neutrality, but I think it is actually a shoe that fits. This was not the McCain of 2000, and the choice of Palin, in ideological terms and as a cynical political move, was a sharp stick in the eye of moderate republicans, independents and conservative democrats everywhere. You did not react as a centrist or leftward tilting person would have. Your view on that subject is still not completely understood -- maybe you can tell us what you REALLY think of her, and McCain's selection of her, in the context of the broader spectrum of our national and international politics. But I'm still not sure what you think (and I'm not sure you know what you think) -- whereas I know exactly what I think of McCain's selection of Palin (a terrible political decision, and an even worse substantive decision, the cynical and desparate act of a man who is prone to taking unreasonable risks very lightly, that revealed what we could expect about his decisionmaking style in a McCain administration that absolutely sealed the election for Obama).

When it comes to SCOTUS, and a variety of other issues, I think you have a noticeable rightward tilt, but not always predictably so. And you do give a reasoned account of the opposing points of view on some of the issues that are discussed on the Blog, although sometimes with short shrift and other times with judgmental overtones that are not always pleasant to observe. And your delicious (occasionally too bitter or astringent) sarcasm definitely leans right as well. But I applaud you for voting for Obama, and maintaining your independence, rightward tilt notwithstanding.

i guess you didn't see the question… or you are very choosey about who you respond to in comments. You did respond to me about asking me "who steve was?" and jdeeripper, you really think he used to have good hair. Still has the best dang five o'clock shadow from the whole bunch of famous ceos, the likes of jack to bill to mike to howard (that's welch, gates, dell and shulz to drop the last names)

any hoot, give a hoot don't pollute with random thoughts...back to blogging.

I started blogging in 2004, too, at the end of the year. I am a persona non grata, meaning I have no real location i own, I have no career, and well there's that celibacy thing that i can't make add any real sexual identification as discussed in an earlier post. Anyway, nothing became of my blog. But lots of ideas and fotos i posted were either good enough for others to emulate, or there was no emulation and it was all coincidence that i was thinking as high and mighty as the profitable super bloggers. Why even your shadows and angel idea, i had done that idea a day before you did. Something of the same nature with a little nora jones singing in the backround. I look at my bandwidth pull and push and no one is looking anyway. So it must all be coincidence. Which would say what about the powers of angels?

anyway, my life before blogging started on compuserve and aol and usenet back in 1995. Even earlier if you count going on my dad's internet, back when the internet was still raw and honest, or so it seemed. I kinda budded out in msn and slate, where i am sure to have seen the likes of some people that post here, maybe even you. Perhaps they are under nondisclosure agreements and can't talk-- hiding behind nom de fingers. Well, that would make for an interesting law case, wouldn't it? When a big, big, big, company supports made up online personalities, and they cause havoc in people's life.

oh well, I guess i got carried away and taken for a schnook later in my internet life. I never made one red cent. or green or any other color...well maybe that's why they got me singing the blues. Not really. it's a challenge living with less, but then at least i don't have to sell my soul as often as others.

and well, i might have inspired something of a sacajawea post. I don't know.

anyway, I guess i will leave those stories of little birds with this thought or song